Authority abuse

Spencer Whitney's column, "Why Ferguson rings so familiar" (Aug. 16), deserves widespread reading, especially in the white community. He describes vividly the frequency with which blacks experience abusive and unjustified treatment by law enforcement officers. He also explains why continued abuse results in the pent-up community anger and retaliation we have seen with Michael Brown's killing. I am white.

Several years ago, I lived in and worked serving a below-poverty-level black community in the San Joaquin Valley. I was sometimes subjected to the abusive and demeaning behavior by police officers. I reacted with the same anger and resentment as my black friends.

Later, in the Bay Area, I served as a volunteer chaplain for a local sheriff's department. With rare exceptions, the deputies with whom I rode treated people with the respect they deserved.

The Michael Brown killing and other similar cases make it essential all of us take whatever steps are necessary so that police abuse is rare and that when it occurs it is punished swiftly and appropriately.

Take off the mask

It is hard to believe that the intent of many protesters at Oakland events in recent years is "pure" when they show up wearing ski masks.

True calls for justice and free speech do not hide behind masks, on either side of the argument.

Bruce Caldwell, Lafayette

Let's settle down

Can we all settle down and take a few deep breaths before taking to the streets in support of the Ferguson protests?

At this point, none of us knows exactly what happened there. Wouldn't it be nice to be more informed before passing judgment?

Oh, and by all means, let's smash some store windows to emphasize our point. Maybe even some looting. Real smart. For all we know, the storekeeper who has to pay for that damage may be a fellow protester.

Jon Rantzman, Walnut Creek

Safety first

PG&E claims they need funds to update their safety infrastructure. And why is that? Years of deferred maintenance allowed them to pay shareholders high profits. They should have been deferring profit shares to their investors if they were really committed to safety. I say no more profits go to investors until all PG&E systems are safe and an ongoing safety program is in place. Maybe then our rates would not have to increase.

Get a grip, America

Apparently we don't have enough money to feed the hungry, house the homeless, upgrade our medical care and our schools, protect the environment, or sue the banks that fleeced us, but wow, do we have money aplenty to outfit the police forces in America with paramilitary gear to use against the people who pay them. Why is that?

Why are we wasting money on weapons we don't need when there are so many other things that could use help in America? The police believe themselves justified in using this weaponry against the citizens simply because they have it.

There is a real problem in this country with trigger-happy cops, and we are enabling them to murder us, most particularly unarmed young black males. Slash the military spending, discipline these knee-jerk police into actually serving us instead of killing us with their new toys, and focus on the very real needs of the communities in America who don't comprise the 1 percent.

No consequences

With all the discussion about the militarization of our police forces, the underlying issue is getting lost: Failure to obey the order of a police officer has become a de facto capital crime.

When Sen. Rand Paul said the other day that the police have become judge and jury, he left out the third role: executioner. If the offender is a young black man, there are no consequences. Little wonder that police think they need to mount a military response to the inevitable demonstrations.

Shorey Chapman, San Francisco

Protect and serve?

Can anything be more transparent than the militarization of our police departments? ("How local police got outfitted for combat," Aug. 17)

We are entering a state of fascism, which we fought hard to defeat in World War II. Protect and serve has morphed into intimidate and brutalize.